Bill Gates touts Teach for America, McDonald’s burgers at MIT

Wednesday, April 21, 2010 -- Anonymous (not verified)

Sections:

Business & Markets

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Author(s):

Thomas Grillo

Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates today told Massachusetts Institute of Technology students that there are opportunities for the school’s brightest minds to solve some of the world’s biggest problems.

“There are less than 100 scientists working on malaria, a disease that kills more than a million people a year,” he said.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, with an endowment of $33.5 billion, supports research and programs in health, education and technology in the United States and developing countries.

Gates stressed that investing in schools is crucial to improving the standard of living. But he said it’s not necessary to go outside the U.S. to work on failing schools.

“I had no idea of how poorly our education is working,” he said. “Over 30 percent of kids drop out of high school and if you’re a minority the number is over 50 percent. Of the ones who complete high school, many of them have had a really poor education.”

Gates hailed the 96 recent MIT graduates who joined Teach for America, a national nonprofit that recruits outstanding college graduates to teach for two years in urban and rural public schools. “Every one of those kids who chose the program would have had other opportunities that would have been far more lucrative,” Gates said

He praised KIPP, one of the largest charter school networks which has a longer school day and longer school year. But he criticized teacher unions without naming them, saying they stand in the way of school reform.

“If we invented a vaccine no one would stand in the way of its distribution,” he said. “But if you do good education, there are groups that will send you back to square zero.”

Gates defended the use of nuclear energy as a safe way to deliver power. He said while coal mines claim thousands of miners worldwide they are still allowed to operate. The nuclear industry would be shut down if lives were lost, he said.

At the close of the session at Kresge Auditorium a freshman asked Gates what’s it like to be the richest person in the world. “The marginal return for actual dollars does drop off,” he said. ‘I haven’t found any burgers at any price that’s better than McDonald’s. But there are a few things, like air travel, that are nice.”